Verse two focuses on the persona’s pubescent years between fourteen and eighteen. At this stage in his life he has moved on to horror stories in particular ones which involve vampires. This is made clear when he says “my cloak and fangs”. In the final verse the persona is between twenty and twenty-three and is reading westerns. He now uses old southern American slang such as “dude”.
One of my initial confusions about the poet was cleared up when I realised that the poem was in dramatic monologue form. The poet had in fact created a persona to give an insight into that person’s reading habits. The character that the poem chose can not be identified with himself since the two are so obviously different. Larkin is a former librarian who has a passion for literature whereas the speaker makes fun of it. The statement at the end of the poem “books are a load of crap” makes clear that the speaker is very dismissive of books.
In lines one and three it is indicated why the persona spends most of his time reading. “Cured most things short of school” shows that he is lonely and doesn’t have any friends. The expression “it was worth ruining my eyes for” means that he must have read too much, despite warnings from his family. Instead of the poet using detailed descriptions in this verse, colloquial and even clichéd phrases are used. This technique is used because the only language the speaker has been exposed to, is that of his books. Another feature that I noticed in this verse was the lack of caesuras. This helps to bring out the persona’s excitement when reading.
By the time I had reached the end of the first verse I realised that one of the main themes dealt with was escapism. The persona is such an avid reader of adventure novels because for the time that he is reading the novel he can identify with the hero. This helps him to escape from reality into a fantasy world. By identifying with the hero, it helps him create a positive self-image and makes him feel better about his problems.
Between verses one and two, there is a time lapse which is indicated by “later”. The speaker now has also succeeded in ruining his eyesight because he now wears “inch-thick specs”.
Now that the speaker is a teenager, his pleasure from reading becomes more sinister. He now reads vampire novels and instead of siding with the “goodie” he is now drawn to the antagonist, in this case the vampire. Ambiguity is used in this verse as a pun. The word “ripping” is slang for fun, but also relates to the character of the vampire.
The last two lines of the verse clearly convey the persona’s violent attitude towards women. The verbs in the phrases “broke them up like meringues” and “clubbed with sex” are used to bring out action and violence. He compares women to meringues because he sees them as being fragile, easy to break but sweet inside. Furthermore, he feels that if he pretends to be a vampire, he will have more control over women and will be dominant. This is the reason he reads so many vampire novels as he feels he can escape from his personal inadequacies.
The final verse opens very bluntly with the phrase “don’t read much now”. The use of the word “now” indicates that the speaker is now talking about the present. The tone of the phrase also shows that he has become more negative towards books and is now dismissive towards them.
Now that the persona no longer enjoys reading, he has started to identify with the minor characters in his books. These characters are far too familiar to him because they remind him of himself, and how he has always lost in life. They contrast with the previous characters the persona used to relate to, but now he has eventually realised that it was all a fantasy and will never come true.
This is the reason that he no longer feels capable of reading, because if he does he will just get plunged into further depression. His attitude towards books is now being reflected in the poem, in particular the last two lines. The phrase “Get stewed” tells us that the persona now finds his escape in alcohol and probably gets drunk regularly. He finds this relief more effective than books because it is better at helping him forget.
The poet’s control of line length and word choice make the condemnation of the last line powerful and dramatic. The words used “Books are a load of crap” act as a bold statement and the mild swearing conveys the persona’s feelings precisely. He feels as if he has been let down by books and that he was gullible for ever believing in them.
In conclusion, though the title suggests a dry, academic study into what people read, it is anything but this. It is written in a lively colloquial style and highlights important points about people and their psychology. In terms of theme, it is being suggested that the role of media in society is becoming too involved with people’s lives. The persona in this book, for example, started to mistake fantasy with reality and become far too dependent on it. When he finally emerged from his fantasy world he was left in shock because he realised what the world was actually like.
